ii86 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



for mere enforcement of personal rights, that of law as supervising 

 the performance of social functions. This, of course, is nothing less 

 than a revolution in thought, and towards practice : since with this, 

 law is passing from holding the ring for rival support of individuals 

 in conflict, and towards their re-adjustment as socians, efficiently 

 co-operative in social service accordingly. This legal revolution has 

 also old and venerable tradition and precedent behind it, since here 

 we see the law changing from that of egoism to that of altruism; in 

 short, from Code of restraint, and towards Evangel of help-will. 

 This seeming excursus from our simpler themes thus justifies itself, 

 as citing an incipient step in evolution, and one of promise : since it 

 is upon the lines of mammalian evolution at their best, of human 

 evolution at best also; for from earliest times onwards these are 

 being increasingly feminised — a very different idea from the merely 

 effeminate. 



This change in law is significant for the mother-sex, above our 

 other controversies of current thought, since heroically cutting its 

 way through the gordian knot of past and present egoisms, and 

 seeking to liberate and evoke all that is best in social humanity. 

 As social science emerges anew upon the public horizon, at present 

 so obscured by small trifles or great conflicts by turns, and both of 

 these very largely for want of it, what better advance can it offer 

 to all; and not only towards industrial and social progress, but 

 towards true peace. And thus especially to woman, whose best 

 intuitions have always been of this very kind — ^witness how she 

 recalls her men-children from their petty conflicts, not by calling 

 in the paternal magistrate on respective rights, but by evoking their 

 better nature, and setting it to worthier tasks than war. Good 

 judges have always desired to do justice; and the best even "seek 

 peace", as at The Hague to-day: but now here comes Themis anew, 

 to teach both them and us how to "ensue it". 



WOMAN AS INVENTOR.— Meantime, however, the hunter's squaw 

 — ^when not occupied with her cooking, skin- dressing, and domestic 

 arts generally — including shelter-making, whence hut-building and 

 of course furnishing too — ^would be going on with her gardening, and 

 sometimes fishing. Such activities, keenly pursued and under the 

 unending stresses of life which woman so peculiarly bears, afforded 

 opportunities for discoveries, and even for those many inventions 

 which the late Prof. Otis Mason, of the famous Smithsonian Institute, 

 so admirably expounded in his Women in Primitive Culture, Woman 

 as Inventor, etc. She was ever learning by experience to know the 

 uncanny plants from the wholesome, and to remember their eflects ; 

 so initiating herbalism for future medicine and pharmacy, albeit 

 by ways later considered witchcraft. Flexible saplings are easily 

 intertwined, and next plaited into a bag or basket, so suggestive 



